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Are we the baddies?

(geohot.github.io)
693 points AndrewSwift | 4 comments | 06 Jul 25 05:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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hardwaresofton ◴[06 Jul 25 07:54 UTC] No.44478703[source]▶
> If you open a government S&P 500 account for everyone with $1,000 at birth that’ll pay their social security cause it like…goes up…wait who’s creating this value again?

This is a good point. Some VCs were major proponents of this (and tons of other business people I'm sure), but this is of course just a guaranteed inflow into the largest companies and the companies that think they will be large some day. Yet another way to reallocate public cash to private companies.

Another similar example is UBI -- its proof of an economy that is not dynamic. It's a tacit approval and recognition of the fact that "no, you probably won't be able to find a job with dignity that can support you and your family, so the government will pay to make you comfortable while you exist".

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tossandthrow ◴[06 Jul 25 08:41 UTC] No.44478933[source]▶
> make you comfortable while you exist

I don't think there are many proponents of that type of ubi.

The way, at least I, see ubi is absolute subsistence - with a right to earn above that without affecting your subsistence.

IMHO something along UBI is needed for a democratized market economy - and I think the Scandinavian countries are the support for this claim.

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al_borland ◴[06 Jul 25 10:30 UTC] No.44479465[source]▶
If everyone gets an equal raise (whatever the UBI is), wouldn’t the entire market simply adjust to price that in, leaving everyone in the same relative position?
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1. lmm ◴[06 Jul 25 11:31 UTC] No.44479793[source]▶
Even at first order, it makes the people at the bottom relatively better off. If we go from Alice having 600, Bob having 0, and Carol having 0, to Alice having 700, Bob having 100, and Carol having 100, then Bob and Carol are still more able to buy things than they were before even if prices now increase by 50%.
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2. ziggure ◴[06 Jul 25 18:12 UTC] No.44482829[source]▶
Yes, being shortsighted ignores the rubber band effect that then disproportionately hurts those people down the road.
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3. const_cast ◴[06 Jul 25 19:42 UTC] No.44483416[source]▶
The arguments against UBI are pretty much the same against rising minimum wages. That being, the baseline just moves, so everything gets more expensive, so the situation doesn't improve at all.

It intuitively makes sense, and like most economic reasoning it's horribly simple. But economics is comprised to two parts: theory, and practice.

Practice always trumps theory. If practice defies your theory, it doesn't mean that the market is broken, or that there's over-regulation, or that your theory will eventually come true. It means your theory is just wrong. All economic theory are predicated on thousands or millions of underlying assumptions. If even just a few of those are not true, or aren't true in the way you think they are, then the theory can be wrong while simultaneously being logically perfect.

When it comes to the arguments against minimum wage, the theory is just wrong. Rising minimum wages do help people making minimum wage. If it does raise the COL, it's slowly, and not in the same degree as the minimum wage shift. In addition, a flat minimum wage still results in a rising COL. You can't simply pin the COL like that.

So knowing what we know about minimum wage, I think it's arrogant to claim the UBI would just result in a rising COL to eat up all the UBI.

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4. tossandthrow ◴[08 Jul 25 07:01 UTC] No.44497747{3}[source]▶
A descriminator between minimum wage and ubi is location.

UBI (if people trust that it will continue) will encourage people moving out of the cities as they don't need to be close to jobs.

I would hypotheses that this would 1) create new more local economies (where people can earn money) and 2) reduce pressure on the hyper metropols.

I would even hypothesize that because of this, it would have an adverse effect on the cost of living.

Butnthese a theories.